


It's A Very Distinctive Relationship

by justbygrace



Category: Leverage
Genre: Canon verse, Eliot's POV, Getting Together, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-11
Updated: 2017-05-11
Packaged: 2018-10-30 13:21:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10877622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justbygrace/pseuds/justbygrace
Summary: Eliot thought he knew how it would be when it happened. He's wrong.





	It's A Very Distinctive Relationship

**Author's Note:**

> I only need to write one story about them. This is that story.

Eliot thought he knew how it would be when it happened. He's wrong.

~~~ 

He hadn't thought about it in terms like "forever" and "love" and "relationship" back at the beginning. Probably because those sorts of words had been erased from his vocabulary right about when he started shaving. (The thing with Aimee was brief, passionate, and had about as much in common with forever as most teenage relationships did.) He hadn't grown up in the same messed up way that Parker and Hardison had, but the war, and guns and knives, and blood, sweat, and tears, and money under the table for a collection of jobs done and names checked off a list, well that does things to you. So, no, he didn't know this was coming. And he couldn't have predicted it.

~~~ 

He knew when Hardison wanted this to become a Thing. Knew because it was whispered in his ear later (way later, after everything is settled, in the quiet of a house far enough off the grid to make them all sleep easy - even if Parker was sleeping on the wide beams installed especially for her), but he knows it at the moment too because back then sex and lust was just another way he had to hurt people and he knew all of the signs. And he'd almost taken Hardison up on it - the invitation in those wide brown eyes as Hardison's bag had slow-mo dropped to the ground amidst bodies falling. Probably would have gone to find him later, but then Dubenich ended up not actually being a good guy and they'd gone to get a "Sophie" and they'd decided this one-time show was going to be a full time gig and you don't con your own team, but you don't sleep with them either. (It isn't Hardison who changes his mind. Or Parker either, though she was closer to it than anyone else, stubborn and desperate, open and angry - the other half of his coin - and he recognized the sharpest part of her as being the same as his edges, how lucky they are that Hardison is basically the human version of a nail file. No, it's Sophie - one of her patented, I-can't-believe-I-suddenly-have-three-children talks that you think is gonna be worse than it is. She calls him on his shit and then kisses his forehead like he hasn't killed people for less.)

~~~ 

There isn't a moment when he knows that he wants whatever this is to be a Thing. He just wakes up one morning and the edges of his brain are burning with knowledge and when he walks into Nate's apartment/Leverage 2.0, he sees Parker sitting cross-legged on the counter and Hardison leaning against the edge right next to her clicking away on his keyboards, and he blinks, twice. The want doesn't go away and so he ignores it and life goes on. He hears the news of their developing relationship on a plane to San Lorenzo and he wants to be mad but he can't. Not the way he thinks he would have been before being handcuffed to Hardison in the middle of the woods and before punching people in the face to rescue Parker. They are seated on either side of him when they tell him, shoulders rubbing with his, words soft and bracketing, and it isn't until much later, after "these people you're with now, would you leave any of them behind," that he wonders why they seated themselves like that or waited until that moment to tell him. He doesn't have the answer then, but he is beginning to believe that someday he will.

~~~ 

It happens slowly. Looking back a lot of it is a blur with only certain moments clearly imprinted on his brain. Moments like explaining to Parker how the two of them are an "us", like holding onto Hardison after he is unearthed from an early grave, like helping Parker learn to feel, like letting Hardison win rock-paper-scissors and "intimidate" the head of the Mexican cartel. Little things. And the other moments, the ones he doesn't realize until way later: Parker touching, always touching; Hardison convincing Nate to let them pair together; arguments over CGI Yoda for Christ's sake; fighting over the last of the Chinese take-out and then giving up and making a fresh batch and trying to shut his ears against the pornographic sounds of enjoyment coming from his hacker and his thief.

~~~ 

It happens quickly. Nate has seemed distracted lately and his distractions lead to the mark finding out more than he should; it goes bad almost immediately after that. They save the day anyway of course, but only because Eliot takes the brunt of it. Nate is apologetic in the way he never used to be and it grates across every single one of Eliot's nerves until Sophie drags Nate out of the room and out of the building and Eliot is left with Hardison bandaging his knuckles and Parker dabbing antiseptic cream to his forehead and maybe he should push them away and he's going to, just...not...yet. When he wakes up he's still there except now his feet are in Parker's lap and his head is in Hardison's lap and he hardly hesitates before he arches his back and someone else, probably anyone he'd fought with or fucked with (and sometimes those two activities are the same thing) would have fled but Hardison meets him halfway and it's lips and teeth and not at all elegant. Parker is involved, but not, and somehow it works for everyone exactly the way it should, taking into account their lives and demons and backgrounds and futures.

~~~ 

He's found that he does't focus on the future now either. Who has the time? Their team expands and deflates, everyone wants to work with them, no one sticks around forever. They pick up a skinny 19 year old kid named Paul who turns out to be an amazing grifter and who sticks with them for six years before leaving to get into politics; no one is surprised. They find Celeste outside Tulsa, she is 85, makes amazing chocolate chip cookies, and is the finest chemist they ever come across. The amount of street kids who Parker trains to be thieves would be frightening if Hardison didn't make sure the door revolved on them and that afterwards they get into technical schools and business schools and universities; both Eliot and Hardison pretend they don't know Parker still visits every single one. They run into Jones in the middle of a job, running his own con as a little bit of everything and are so impressed they adopt him when he's in town or whenever they can convince him to show up. They meet up with Nate and Sophie every so often, usually overseas, sometimes where they least expect it - they are all named godparents when the twins are born. But no one else ever questions what they are to each other; most of the time they don't question it themselves either. They expand and contract, argue and make-up, disappear in the dead of night and reappear when the clouds have cleared. Anyone from the outside would say it's impossible, but they just laugh. Impossible is what they do.

~~~ 

He doesn't try to predict the future anymore. He is happy with the present and confident in their forever. 


End file.
